The Definition of True Love
by Kristen3
Summary: Set after "Kitchen Nightmares." When Bob returns from his trip, Joy has to break the news that they aren't adopting the baby, but his reaction gives her even more reason to love him. One-shot.


**Author's Note:** I'm totally rooting for Joy/Simon to end up together, but Bob has grown on me. Since we never saw Bob in "Kitchen Nightmares," I wondered how Joy would explain the whole disaster to him, and why they lost the baby. This resulted, and I think it's helped me deal with the show ending. There will surely be more stories from me in the future, once we see how Joy's story ends!

Joy couldn't help feeling nervous as she saw Bob come into Stormi's. He was back from his business trip, and now she had to break the bad news to him: the baby they'd been planning to adopt was no longer up for adoption. And it was all her fault.

"Ah, there you are, Joy," Bob said, coming over and taking both of her hands in his. He kissed her.

Joy could only smile as the kiss ended. "I'm so glad you're back. Here, let's sit down." She pointed to the table next to them.

"The sign out front said this place is under new management. I didn't even know it was for sale!"

"Yeah," Joy said, wincing a bit. She and her friends were the new owners. That was part of the fiasco that led to her and Bob losing the baby. "Melanie and Victoria and I just bought this place. I thought it would help us adopt that baby. The mother didn't think detective work was a very safe environment for a baby."

"Oh, well, that's great. But I hope you'll still find time to be my honeytrap. No one can get a man's attention like you can. And I should know." He gave her his usual flirty smile.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," Joy said with a laugh. "But...I have some bad news. We're not getting that baby."

"What? Why? Oh, I knew I should've been here when you met them!"

Joy reached over to squeeze his hand. "It had nothing to do with you. It was actually all my fault. Well, Melanie and Victoria helped."

"What happened?"

"It's a long story." Joy sighed. "Well, Chloe, that's the mother, came here on our opening night. I was hoping to impress her. But things sort of fell apart rather quickly. The chef Melanie hired had never cooked for a crowd of people before. And we suddenly lost our waiters. Chloe wanted to meet you, and she said there was another couple who wanted the baby. I had one of our staff members pretend to be my fiancee. He kept talking about wine and saying the wrong things. Then the other couple showed up. It turns out the wife is great with babies. I knew I had to prove that I was good with babies, too. So I ran into the kitchen and got a raw chicken to pass off as a baby. That's when things got _really_ weird."

"Oh, as opposed to how things were before that," Bob said.

"Well, the chef was only able to make one dish, and Victoria wanted it for the food critic, and I needed to give it to Chloe. We got into a fight, and the food went flying. Then my 'baby' caught fire."

"Oh, God." Bob could hardly imagine so many things going wrong at once.

"And to top it all off, we found out that our chef used to date Chloe. When they saw each other, they fell back in love, so now Chloe's not giving the baby up. It was all rather romantic, except it ruined everything for us." Joy looked at her lap, ashamed of how she'd destroyed Bob's chance at having the child he'd always wanted.

"Joy, you didn't ruin anything. We could still have a baby."

Joy laughed. "Bob, I'm afraid that's not possible. I mean, I know _you_ can have a baby whenever, but it's not like that for women."

Bob smiled. "Hey, you got pregnant once without even trying. Who's to say it can't happen again?"

Suddenly, Joy remembered why she'd fallen in love with this man. Underneath his constant attempts to hit on her, Bob was actually a really sweet guy. "I love you," she said, leaning forward to kiss him.

Suddenly, Joy felt someone watching her. She turned to the bar and saw Melanie and Victoria standing there. "I'll be right back," she said to Bob. She walked over to her friends.

"Bob thinks I can get pregnant!" Joy exclaimed. The idea was ridiculous. Even Elka loved to point out her no-longer-functioning uterus.

"Aw, honey, stranger things have happened," Melanie said.

"Yes," Victoria agreed. "Don't you remember, on _Edge of Tomorrow_ , when Honor St. Raven got pregnant using sperm from her long-lost twin brother?"

Joy could only stare at Victoria, speechless.

Melanie broke the silence. "Even if that doesn't work out, you guys could still adopt another baby. You can't give up. You're gonna make a great mom."

"Thank you," Joy said, leaning across the bar to hug her friend. Melanie's optimism was often exactly what Joy needed when she was tempted to give into her usual cynicism. She looked over at Bob, who sat watching them. Her search for love had taken so many wrong turns over the years. Many times, she'd thought she'd end up alone, with only her girlfriends to take care of her. But life had surprised her yet again. Because, not only did Bob want to marry her, he believed in her more than she thought possible. That, she now realized, was definitely true love.

 **The End**


End file.
